On August 31, 2010, the New York Center for Liver Transplantation completed a four-year research grant received from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Division of Transplantation (HRSA/DoT) entitled “Increasing Liver Donation through Peer-Developed Education.” The grant project looked to increase the information available to potential living liver donors in five of the transplant centers in New York State by using peer-developed educational materials shared by living liver donors.

The first of its kind, “Increasing Liver Donation through Peer-Developed Education,” enabled pre-transplant patients and their loved ones to have access to resources and educational materials about the impacts of the living liver donation process from the perspectives of past living liver donors.

The project was an outgrowth of a Department of Health mandated program in New York State; where quality-of-life of living liver donors is tracked post donation through a self-administered Living Liver Donor Post-Donation Survey. This project entailed using general information from the survey to develop and implement the educational intervention with pre-transplant patients and living liver donors.